Event Information

On July 30-31, 2004, more than 40 preeminent international leaders from the public, private, and non-profit sectors came together at the Aspen Institute to discuss "America's Role in the Fight Against Global Poverty" and to set out a forward-looking strategy for the United States.

Co-hosted by Richard C. Blum of Blum Capital Partners LP, the Brookings Institution's Poverty and Global Economy Initiative, the Aspen Institute, and Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative, the group's aim was to explore the dilemma of global poverty from different perspectives, to disaggregate the seemingly intractable problem into more manageable challenges, and to identify key elements of an effective U.S. policy agenda.

With roundtable participants hailing from around the world and representing diverse experiences and approaches, the dialogue was as multifaceted as the challenge of poverty itself. Rather than simply summarize conference proceedings, this essay attempts to weave together the thoughtful exchanges, impassioned calls to action, fresh insights, and innovative ideas that characterized the discussion, and to set the stage for ongoing collaboration in the struggle for human dignity.

Helping to define the issues, share and encourage what works, and build the intellectual framework for such an enterprise will be the guiding mission of the Richard C. Blum Roundtable in the years ahead.


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Event Information

From August 3 to 6, 2005, fifty preeminent international leaders from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors came together at the Aspen Institute for a roundtable, "The Private Sector in the Fight against Global Poverty."

The roundtable was hosted by Richard C. Blum of Blum Capital Partners and Strobe Talbott and Lael Brainard of the Brookings Institution, with the active support of honorary cochairs Walter Isaacson of the Aspen Institute and Mary Robinson of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative. By highlighting the power of the market to help achieve social and economic progress in the world's poorest nations, the roundtable's organizers hoped to galvanize the private, public, and nonprofit sectors to move beyond argument and analysis to action. Put simply, as Brookings president Strobe Talbott explained, the roundtable's work was "brainstorming with a purpose."

With experts hailing from around the world and representing diverse sectors and approaches, the dialogue was as multilayered as the challenge of poverty itself. Rather than summarize the conference proceedings, this essay weaves together the thoughtful observations, fresh insights, and innovative ideas that characterized the discussion. A companion volume, Transforming the Development Landscape: The Role of the Private Sector, contains papers by conference participants, providing in-depth analysis of each conference topic.

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I was honored today to speak at the kick off meeting of the new ReFormers Caucus. This group of over 100 former members of the U.S. Senate, the House, and governors of both parties, has come together to fight for meaningful campaign finance reform. In the bipartisan spirit of the caucus, I shared speaking duties with Professor Richard Painter, who was the Bush administration ethics czar and my predecessor before I had a similar role in the Obama White House. 

As I told the distinguished audience of ReFormers (get the pun?) gathered over lunch on Capitol Hill, I wish they had existed when in my Obama administration role I was working for the passage of the Disclose Act. That bill would have brought true transparency to the post-Citizens United campaign finance system, yet it failed by just one vote in Congress.  But it is not too late for Americans, working together, to secure enhanced transparency and other campaign finance changes that are desperately needed.  Momentum is building, with increasing levels of public outrage, as reflected in state and local referenda passing in Maine, Seattle and San Francisco just this week, and much more to come at the federal, state and local level.

I was honored today to speak at the kick off meeting of the new ReFormers Caucus. This group of over 100 former members of the U.S. Senate, the House, and governors of both parties, has come together to fight for meaningful campaign finance reform. In the bipartisan spirit of the caucus, I shared speaking duties with Professor Richard Painter, who was the Bush administration ethics czar and my predecessor before I had a similar role in the Obama White House. 

As I told the distinguished audience of ReFormers (get the pun?) gathered over lunch on Capitol Hill, I wish they had existed when in my Obama administration role I was working for the passage of the Disclose Act. That bill would have brought true transparency to the post-Citizens United campaign finance system, yet it failed by just one vote in Congress.  But it is not too late for Americans, working together, to secure enhanced transparency and other campaign finance changes that are desperately needed.  Momentum is building, with increasing levels of public outrage, as reflected in state and local referenda passing in Maine, Seattle and San Francisco just this week, and much more to come at the federal, state and local level.

Editors’ Note: While much has been made of U.S. plans to counter ISIS in Libya, little is known about the role the Italians are playing, write Matteo Garavoglia and Leore Ben Chorin. Italians and Americans should better coordinate their efforts. This post originally appeared on The National Interest.

The ISIS buildup in Libya is undeniable. U.S. Commander General of Africa Command David Rodriguez testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 8 that the Islamic State in Libya represents a serious and growing threat to the security and interests of America and its allies throughout the region.

While the United States, Italy and other coalition members continue to pressure Libyans to endorse a U.N.-brokered national unity plan, the same coalition members are starting to weave together plans for the “day after,” should a unity government be formed. Should such a government request international assistance, only hours or days will pass before more coalition forces will be on the ground, in the air and at sea. Among these coalition partners and throughout this buildup, Italy is bound to play a key role in the coalition. This is because of colonial ties, the influx of migrants that seek daily to cross the Mediterranean, the two countries’ geographic proximity and their shared economic interests.

While much has been made of U.S. plans, little is known about the role the Italians are playing and the assets they bring to the coalition. In January, Italy and the United States reached an agreement allowing American armed drones to fly from its Sigonella Naval and Air Station in Sicily, while over fifty Italian special operations forces were deployed in Libya two weeks ago. This is on top of the over forty Italian intelligence officers sent to Libya since July 2015, and the long-standing Italian presence on the ground, aimed at collecting human intelligence. More forces are expected in the weeks to come. The Italian contributions complement Washington's unrivaled convening power to seek a diplomatic path toward a unity government. Additionally, the United States has superior overhead imagery capabilities and the ability to carry out two-thirds of all precision strikes needed to counter ISIS.

[T]wo different clocks are ticking: a diplomatic one to establish a Libyan unity government, and a military one to counter ISIS. The two are out of sync.

Within this context, two different clocks are ticking: a diplomatic one to establish a Libyan unity government, and a military one to counter ISIS. The two are out of sync. Rome is unwilling to assume a leading role in Libya until a unity government is in place. Washington will not wait indefinitely to step up operations against ISIS. At the same time, the Italians are acutely aware that an ISIS stronghold in Libya would present a fundamental threat to their security. Equally, the Americans are reticent to further stretch themselves politically and militarily and would welcome strong Italian leadership. The diplomatic and military clocks must be aligned for Rome and Washington to effectively work together.

Italians and Americans should coordinate their efforts by playing “good cop, bad cop.” Rome should emphasize to the Libyans that forming a unity government would enable them to play a more proactive role in shaping the agenda of an Italian-led international engagement. At the same time, Rome should highlight that there is a limit to the extent that Italy can restrain Washington from escalating a military intervention beyond the control of all Libyan stakeholders. While continuing to support diplomatic efforts, the United States should up the tempo of its military preparations and surgical interventions. This would put pressure on bickering Libyans by showing them that they are running out of time to reach an agreement. Cajoling Libyans into forming a unity government would better align the American and Italian efforts to fight ISIS. Most importantly, it would give Libyans a say in the future of their country.

Editors’ Note: While much has been made of U.S. plans to counter ISIS in Libya, little is known about the role the Italians are playing, write Matteo Garavoglia and Leore Ben Chorin. Italians and Americans should better coordinate their efforts. This post originally appeared on The National Interest.

The ISIS buildup in Libya is undeniable. U.S. Commander General of Africa Command David Rodriguez testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 8 that the Islamic State in Libya represents a serious and growing threat to the security and interests of America and its allies throughout the region.

While the United States, Italy and other coalition members continue to pressure Libyans to endorse a U.N.-brokered national unity plan, the same coalition members are starting to weave together plans for the “day after,” should a unity government be formed. Should such a government request international assistance, only hours or days will pass before more coalition forces will be on the ground, in the air and at sea. Among these coalition partners and throughout this buildup, Italy is bound to play a key role in the coalition. This is because of colonial ties, the influx of migrants that seek daily to cross the Mediterranean, the two countries’ geographic proximity and their shared economic interests.

While much has been made of U.S. plans, little is known about the role the Italians are playing and the assets they bring to the coalition. In January, Italy and the United States reached an agreement allowing American armed drones to fly from its Sigonella Naval and Air Station in Sicily, while over fifty Italian special operations forces were deployed in Libya two weeks ago. This is on top of the over forty Italian intelligence officers sent to Libya since July 2015, and the long-standing Italian presence on the ground, aimed at collecting human intelligence. More forces are expected in the weeks to come. The Italian contributions complement Washington's unrivaled convening power to seek a diplomatic path toward a unity government. Additionally, the United States has superior overhead imagery capabilities and the ability to carry out two-thirds of all precision strikes needed to counter ISIS.

[T]wo different clocks are ticking: a diplomatic one to establish a Libyan unity government, and a military one to counter ISIS. The two are out of sync.

Within this context, two different clocks are ticking: a diplomatic one to establish a Libyan unity government, and a military one to counter ISIS. The two are out of sync. Rome is unwilling to assume a leading role in Libya until a unity government is in place. Washington will not wait indefinitely to step up operations against ISIS. At the same time, the Italians are acutely aware that an ISIS stronghold in Libya would present a fundamental threat to their security. Equally, the Americans are reticent to further stretch themselves politically and militarily and would welcome strong Italian leadership. The diplomatic and military clocks must be aligned for Rome and Washington to effectively work together.

Italians and Americans should coordinate their efforts by playing “good cop, bad cop.” Rome should emphasize to the Libyans that forming a unity government would enable them to play a more proactive role in shaping the agenda of an Italian-led international engagement. At the same time, Rome should highlight that there is a limit to the extent that Italy can restrain Washington from escalating a military intervention beyond the control of all Libyan stakeholders. While continuing to support diplomatic efforts, the United States should up the tempo of its military preparations and surgical interventions. This would put pressure on bickering Libyans by showing them that they are running out of time to reach an agreement. Cajoling Libyans into forming a unity government would better align the American and Italian efforts to fight ISIS. Most importantly, it would give Libyans a say in the future of their country.

ABSTRACT—

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has for many years stressed innovation, knowledge and scaling up as essential ingredients of its strategy to combat rural poverty in developing countries. This institutional review of IFAD’s approach to scaling up is the fi rst of its kind: A team of development experts were funded by a small grant from IFAD to assess IFAD’s track record in scaling up successful interventions, its operational policies and processes, instruments, resources and incentives, and to provide recommendations to management for how to turn IFAD into a scaling-up institution. Beyond IFAD, this institutional scaling up review is a pilot exercise that can serve as an example for other development institutions.

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Over the past several years, thousands of foreign fighters have traveled to Syria and Iraq on a scale unprecedented in modern history. While most foreign fighters remain engaged in combat, some have begun to return, posing a real, if sometimes exaggerated, security threat to home countries. In such situations, how should governments aim to respond? Are there policies that can defuse the security threats posed by returning fighters without alienating individuals and communities key to countering violent extremism?

Read "Returning foreign fighters: Criminalization or reintegration?"

Drawing on case studies from countries such as France, Denmark, and the United Kingdom, this Policy Briefing by Charles Lister points to the necessity of counter-terrorism measures, yet cautions against allowing these policies to translate into blanket criminalization of individuals or communities. On a basic level, policymakers will have to navigate between “hard” policies of criminal investigation and prosecution and more “liberal” policies that that aim to rehabilitate fighters and better reintegrate them into their home communities.

Lister concludes that countries should adopt a nuanced approach toward returning foreign fighters, relying on closer coordination between local authorities and community leaders, improved information sharing on the foreign-fighter phenomenon, and a better understanding of the dynamics of recruitment and radicalization.

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Terrorist attacks with high casualties usually create a sense of national solidarity and patriotic reaction in societies that fall victim to such heinous acts. Not in Turkey, however. Despite a growing number of terrorist attacks by the so-called Islamic State on Turkish soil in the last 12 months, the country remains as polarized as ever under strongman President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In fact, for two reasons, jihadist terrorism is exacerbating the division. First, Turkey's domestic polarization already has an Islamist-versus-secularist dimension. Most secularists hold Erdogan responsible for having created domestic political conditions that turn a blind eye to jihadist activities within Turkey.

It must also be said that polarization between secularists and Islamists in Turkey often fails to capture the complexity of Turkish politics, where not all secularists are democrats and not all Islamists are autocrats. In fact, there was a time when Erdogan was hailed as the great democratic reformer against the old secularist establishment under the guardianship of the military.

Yet, in the last five years, the religiosity and conservatism of the ruling Justice and Development Party, also known by its Turkish acronym AKP, on issues ranging from gender equality to public education has fueled the perception of rapid Islamization. Erdogan's anti-Western foreign policy discourse -- and the fact that Ankara has been strongly supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood in the wake of the Arab Spring -- exacerbates the secular-versus-Islamist divide in Turkish society.

Erdogan doesn't fully support the eradication of jihadist groups in Syria.

The days Erdogan represented the great hope of a Turkish model where Islam, secularism, democracy and pro-Western orientation came together are long gone. Despite all this, it is sociologically more accurate to analyze the polarization in Turkey as one between democracy and autocracy rather than one of Islam versus secularism.

The second reason why ISIS terrorism is exacerbating Turkey's polarization is related to foreign policy. A significant segment of Turkish society believes Erdogan's Syria policy has ended up strengthening ISIS. In an attempt to facilitate Syrian President Bashar Assad's overthrow, the AKP turned a blind eye to the flow of foreign volunteers transiting Turkey to join extremist groups in Syria. Until last year, Ankara often allowed Islamists to openly organize and procure equipment and supplies on the Turkish side of the Syria border.

Making things worse is the widely held belief that Turkey's National Intelligence Organization, or MİT, facilitated the supply of weapons to extremist Islamist elements amongst the Syrian rebels. Most of the links were with organizations such as Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and Islamist extremists from Syria's Turkish-speaking Turkmen minority.

He is trying to present the PKK as enemy number one.

Turkey's support for Islamist groups in Syria had another rationale in addition to facilitating the downfall of the Assad regime: the emerging Kurdish threat in the north of the country. Syria's Kurds are closely linked with Turkey's Kurdish nemesis, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, which has been conducting an insurgency for greater rights for Turkey's Kurds since 1984.

On the one hand, Ankara has hardened its stance against ISIS by opening the airbase at Incirlik in southern Turkey for use by the U.S-led coalition targeting the organization with air strikes. However, Erdogan doesn't fully support the eradication of jihadist groups in Syria. The reason is simple: the Arab and Turkmen Islamist groups are the main bulwark against the expansion of the de facto autonomous Kurdish enclave in northern Syria. The AKP is concerned that the expansion and consolidation of a Kurdish state in Syria would both strengthen the PKK and further fuel similar aspirations amongst Turkey's own Kurds.

Will the most recent ISIS terrorist attack in Istanbul change anything in Turkey's main threat perception? When will the Turkish government finally realize that the jihadist threat in the country needs to be prioritized? If you listen to Erdogan's remarks, you will quickly realize that the real enemy he wants to fight is still the PKK. He tries hard after each ISIS attack to create a "generic" threat of terrorism in which all groups are bundled up together without any clear references to ISIS. He is trying to present the PKK as enemy number one.

Only after a peace process with Kurds will Turkey be able to understand that ISIS is an existential threat to national security.

Under such circumstances, Turkish society will remain deeply polarized between Islamists, secularists, Turkish nationalists and Kurdish rebels. Terrorist attacks, such as the one in Istanbul this week and the one in Ankara in July that killed more than 100 people, will only exacerbate these divisions.

Finally, it is important to note that the Turkish obsession with the Kurdish threat has also created a major impasse in Turkish-American relations in Syria. Unlike Ankara, Washington's top priority in Syria is to defeat ISIS. The fact that U.S. strategy consists of using proxy forces such as Syrian Kurds against ISIS further complicates the situation.

There will be no real progress in Turkey's fight against ISIS unless there is a much more serious strategy to get Ankara to focus on peace with the PKK. Only after a peace process with Kurds will Turkey be able to understand that ISIS is an existential threat to national security.

This piece was originally posted by The Huffington Post.

Should the United States and NATO consider deploying their current airpower in Afghanistan more assertively? In a May 21 Wall Street Journal op-ed, that’s what retired general and former Afghanistan commander David Petraeus and I contend. Under current rules of engagement, their airpower is used only against al-Qaida or ISIS targets, or when NATO troops are in imminent danger—or, in extremis, when there is a strategic threat to the mission from Taliban attack. As a result of this and other factors, the employment of ordnance by U.S. airpower in Afghanistan is far less than in Iraq and Syria—perhaps by a factor of 20 less, in fact.

But the Taliban can and should be targeted more comprehensively in Afghanistan. An American drone strike over the weekend in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan killed the leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Akhtar Mohammed Mansour. That’s welcome news, since the organization he led is the group that allowed al-Qaida to use Afghan bases to prepare the 9/11 attacks; they continue to kill many innocent Afghan and NATO troops, including with horrific attacks in Kabul and elsewhere; they continue to favor draconian measures if they are ever able to regain power in Afghanistan in the future; and they remain a serious threat to the Afghan government and people. The fight against them is far from lost, but the Afghan military's airpower remains underdeveloped and in need of considerable help from the United States and NATO for at least a couple more years.

I was honored today to speak at the kick off meeting of the new ReFormers Caucus. This group of over 100 former members of the U.S. Senate, the House, and governors of both parties, has come together to fight for meaningful campaign finance reform. In the bipartisan spirit of the caucus, I shared speaking duties with Professor Richard Painter, who was the Bush administration ethics czar and my predecessor before I had a similar role in the Obama White House. 

As I told the distinguished audience of ReFormers (get the pun?) gathered over lunch on Capitol Hill, I wish they had existed when in my Obama administration role I was working for the passage of the Disclose Act. That bill would have brought true transparency to the post-Citizens United campaign finance system, yet it failed by just one vote in Congress.  But it is not too late for Americans, working together, to secure enhanced transparency and other campaign finance changes that are desperately needed.  Momentum is building, with increasing levels of public outrage, as reflected in state and local referenda passing in Maine, Seattle and San Francisco just this week, and much more to come at the federal, state and local level.